Hope for Future Glory – Sermon 2 December, 2012

Hope for Future Glory

Isaiah 9:2-7, Math. 12:15-21, Rom. 8:18-25

The theme of the first Sunday of Advent is Hope. Talking about the dawning light, the Prophet Isaiah refers to the Lord Jesus, who came to the world to give us hope. A hope that encourages us in our daily life and gives us the ability to understand, that we have a promise for the future. In difficult times we hang on this hope to see that good things will happen to us. We have to remind ourselves that there is the hope for a good future.

As Isaiah says, the people of Israel were walking in darkness; God gave them a light, which inspired them with hope in their hopeless situation. Similarly, today we need hope to look to the future.

The hope of Christmas has two important features:

1. Jesus is the reason for our hope.

Without Jesus we would be hopeless because of our sins, and we would enter into the world of desperation. We as human beings are sinners, but God gives us hope to have the possibility to inherit the blessings of the eternal life. The prophet said: “The Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Is. 7:14). According to the words of the prophet, God Himself will come to the world to pay the price of men’s sin of hopelessness. Therefore the birth of the Lord Jesus brings hope and light to the world, because He is the Light of the World. We will not comprehend the meaning of light if we do not understand the meaning of darkness and we will not be able to understand the meaning of hope, if we do not accept that we need God.

2.  Jesus is the means of having hope

The Lord Jesus is not only the reason for our hope, but He is the means to our hope. With the Lord Jesus our hope for God becomes a reality. Paul says: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:1-2). By the sacrifice of Jesus, God gave us the hope and the promise of salvation. Where is our faith today? In what do we put our hope? Do we trust the Lord? Do we trust Him to be the only hope for our salvation?

If we can put our trust in people, we can trust to the Lord. He is our only hope.

Dietrich Bonheoffer from his prison cell wrote a letter in which we find the following reflection about the Advent season: “A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes – and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent”. When we are under pressure and in fear, we want to have the hope of God’s presence, promise and strength.

But our hope is not based on the conditions and the norms of the world and life. Our hope is totally on different conditions. Three things we should know.

1. We have hope for we know who we are. We, God’s people, children and the saved ones through Jesus Christ have to be the heirs of His Kingdom. We are sorry for those who do not have this hope. If they don’t believe in God they don’t have hope. We know that success and power have their limits. We are blessed if we put our trust in God.

2. We have hope because we know whose we are. God is the base of our being. He is our father and we are His children. He has saved us, renewed us and totally transformed us. We have the trust because He is our trust. We are His people.

3. We have hope because we know where we are. If we belong to Jesus, it means that we live in His Kingdom. We don’t need to wait for His second coming. He is already here. He is in us and around us. We walk with God every day. If His Kingdom is a reality for us, then we have hope.

The incarnation of the Lord gave us the hope for eternity.

At the beginning of the gospels we read about the events that lead to the birth of Jesus. In the first chapter of Luke we read about the promise of the birth of John the Baptist. When Zachariah had the honour to serve in the Temple of the Lord, the angel Gabriel appeared to him to give him hope with the promise of a son as an answer to his and his wife’s prayers, who will be the messenger and the one to prepare the way of the Messiah.

About this message of hope, the Prophet Isaiah had already written 700 years ago. Mark had confirmed that and the Lord Himself had quoted as a true reference about the Baptist. The prophet had written about the future hope that will reveal itself with the coming of a prophet before Christ. This is the hope that came through, that the evangelist and Jesus himself had announced that He had arrived. Also the Prophet Malachi has written about this, announcing that John will come to pave the way for the Messiah.

Therefore the message of hope is about the wait anticipating the one who will save the world.

God had promised to send a messenger before Christ. He promised to bring Elijah before Christ and He promised to save us from our sins, and He did by bringing His son the Lord Jesus.

In all cases, He gave us hope announcing what will happen, and then He gave us the gift of celebrating for all His blessings.

The hope is expecting the promise to become reality. We can hope that we will be saved and inherit eternal life having our place in His heavenly Kingdom. Today we have to look at the promise and hope of eternal life. The Christian faith teaches us to live with hope. The fisherman says: “It is better to fish with hope, than to catch a fish”. The Christian life should be a life of experience of hope.

As Zachariah and Elizabeth waited with hope for the promised child and the fisherman waits for his fish, let us continue to look forward to the future with great hope. Many people did not see the promise of God that was given to them because of their pessimism and prejudice. But we have the advantage of the many records about the fulfilment of God’s promise 2000 years ago. Today we have many reasons to be thankful. We are blessed with knowledge, that Jesus has come and has paid the price for our sins by sacrificing His life. We have the comfort of knowing that our hope has been fulfilled and will continue to be fulfilled.

We have the hope for new life. A life where there is no pain and sorrow but a life full of joy and praise. In this Advent season we celebrate the Hope that God has given us through His promise and the fulfilling of His promise. We celebrate the birth of Christ, because without Him we don’t have hope.

Come let us pass on the good news of the Hope of Christmas, our hope, to others, especially to those who do not have hope.

Krikor Youmshajekian